Keep the Home Fires Burning
by stormyskies73
Summary: A prequel of sorts to Happily Ever After in Maine. When Trapper was drafted, the family he left behind had to carry on. This is how that affected Becky. This is what shaped her into the Beck Pierce-McIntyre of HEAIM. This is Life Before. *Oneshot.*


**I know I should be working on my other fics, but this just sort of happened.**

**Disclaimer: Sadly, M*A*S*H ain't mine.**

* * *

_June 1950_

War has been declared, and somewhere in Boston, Massachussets, is a young girl. She is six years old, with liquid brown eyes and a tangle of blonde curls, and she is excited.

She doesn't understand.

"Cath-Cath!" she calls to her sister the night she finds out. "We're at war! I've never been in a war before!" In the future she will look back on this and grimace at her naïveté - how could she be so excited about something so awful?- but right now she is young and innocent, and a collector of experiences. This is a new experience.

"Yes you have." The slightly older girl corrects her, rolling her eyes. There is only a year between them, but she acts older than she really is. Her sister acts younger.

"That's different, Cathy. I was a baby then." The blonde girl say it like it should have been obvious. "It doesn't count."

"Just go to sleep, Becky."

"No!" She replies, and Cathy shushes her, because their parents are asleep and they really shouldn't be up at ten pm. "I can't sleep!"

"Then pretend you're sleeping. It'll be like a game!"

"OK." Becky slips back down the hall to her own bedroom. "Korea." She whispers the word quietly to the darkness. It sounds strange, exotic, unfamiliar. She decides she likes it. "I wonder what kind of place it is?" She contemplates this as she falls asleep.

* * *

_July 1950_

Things are different now. Becky has begun to find out about shelling and bombing and casualties, and she is confused and afraid. "Why?" She asks everyone she knows this, but no-one can give her any real answer. Later, when she is older, she will think long and hard about this question and realize that the only reason is because people can be so stupid, but this is not the future. This is now, and Becky is a different child to who she will become.

The world outside the four walls of her home scares her, but inside she is safe, protected. Nothing can harm her there, and she can pretend that people aren't getting hurt miles away. Until the day her father is drafted. She says the word to herself, and she doesn't like the way is sounds. It reminds her of cold winter days when all the doors and windows are closed tightly against the storm, but the wind still gets in like an evil spirit and you can't get warm no matter how hard you try. The war seems so much more _there _now someone she cares about is in the middle of it in this strange new country called Korea.

When he leaves he doesn't say a proper, verbal goodbye -a trait both Becky and Cathy will inherit - and the girls and their mother are left behind to carry on their lives as normal. So that is what Becky does. She locks up her heart as best she can and begins to develop a mechanism to stop her being sad ever again- she will later define this as her own brand of optimsim. She rationalizes the situation using a peculiar mix of logic and wishful thinking, and suddenly she is the mature one. She sleeps in her sister's bed at night, but she refuses to appear broken in the daylight. She must be strong.

* * *

_August 1950_

Becky has returned to sleeping in her own room. She no longer needs comforting. She is becoming emotionally self-sufficient. In a year or so the process will be complete. The house still feels empty, but she is getting used to it. She adapts quickly - she has had to, and it will make her life a lot easier in the future.

Her father writes to the three of them from Korea-country, and it makes their mother cry because she is struggling to cope on her own. Cathy and Becky read the letter together, and they know most of the words but not all of them. They write back, and Becky wants to take the letter to show her friends. She will develop a similar attachment to another letter in a few years time, but she can't even imagine the circumstances right now.

She likes to look out of her bedroom window and imagine she can see all the way to this new place she's never been, but Cathy informs her she's facing the wrong way. She takes to looking out of her sister's window instead.

* * *

_September 1950_

Cathy is eight years old, and Becky is still only six. She is annoyed at how often her sister takes this to mean she can pull rank and stops speaking to her. She can't keep it up, though, because that would mean losing another member of her family and she doesn't want that.

Their mother has taken a part-time job to occupy her time and stop her feeling so a!one. Cathy and Becky now spend Friday evenings with either Cathy's friend Ada (who Becky thinks is obnoxious and insensitive - although she doesn't use those words) or with Becky's usual partner in crime, Hazel (in time, Hazel and Becky will drift apart, but they don't know this yet). It has been decided that the girls will sleep over, and with Hazel this isn't so bad because she understands, but Ada thinks she's weird and stupid because she's usually in a good mood even when she's talking about things that make her sad. Cathy is like a different person with Ada, so when Becky writes to her father in Korea-country and tells him about it she refers to her sister as Ada Two. At least she's not alone, though, because her father has a bad roommate too. However, he has backup and she doesn't. She tries not to let Ada bother her. So far it seems to be working. Sort of.

* * *

_October 1950_

Ada has started making fun of Becky's habit of saying Korea-country rather than just Korea, and Cathy does nothing to defend her. Their mother finds out and scolds the older girl for allowing her sister to be victimized, then asks Ada's parents if this is in any way acceptable to them. They agree to talk to their daughter, but Becky refuses to go back the next week. It is agreed that she can just stay with Hazel rather than alternating. The two spend the time plotting revenge on Ada, but these plans are usually unsuccessful, and many are never put into action at all. Becky will never be good at plans.

She no longer needs to look out of the window, because she already feels like she knows this country across the ocean from her father's letters. Instead she takes a map of the world, closes her eyes, and jabs a pin into it. It lands on a place called Malaysia - another country she likes the name of - and she wonders what it would be like to live there. She asks her mother and Cathy, and neither of them are really sure. She decides to write to her father and see if he knows, or if there's anyone in his unit who might know.

* * *

_November 1950_

Cathy has decided to take up ballet, and Becky goes too. She doesn't understand why it's pronounced differently to how it's spelt and immediately goes off it. It sounds pretentious. Besides, it bores her. She'd rather go exploring somewhere inside her head, like when she plays her travel game or reads. She doesn't have time for floaty skirts and weirdly-named uncomfortable poses.

The pin lands in Vietnam. In the near-future, there'll be a war there, too, and she will wonder why such horrible things happen to places with such pretty-sounding names. If Ada was with her, she'd be ridiculed, but Ada isn't there. Cathy is, though, but she's Nice Cathy, not Ada Two, and she joins in with Becky's game.

Becky begins making a list of all these places she hasn't been - Korea, Malaysia, Vietnam - in a notebook she finds, and vows to some day visit them all. One day she will, and this is the same notebook that will come with her. Cathy says she'll go on the journey too, and so does Hazel, but neither of them actually will.

Her father is still in Korea-country and tells her it's probably worth the visit when there isn't a war to spoil the view.

* * *

_December 1950_

All Becky wants for Christmas is for her father and all the people he told her about to get home soon, and safe. In a couple of years she will be able to meet most of them for real, but she has already made her judgments. Most of them are right. She will never know if she was right about Henry Blake.

She doesn't get her wish. She gets a globe and a bicycle, which she supposes will have to do.

It's strange, spending Christmas with a member of your family missing when you've all been together in previous years. Becky tells herself to get used to it because she doesn't know how many more there will be. She will not break down.

The pin lands in Maine. She does not yet know the significance of this, but she adds it to the list in her notebook. It will be the first of the locations she visits, although she doesn't know it. She finds out that her father knows someone from Maine, so she asks him to ask what it's like. She will eventually end up living there.

* * *

_January 1951_

She makes her Christmas wish again on her birthday, but doesn't get it. She wonders why peace is too much to ask for, when it's only a small thing. Ada tells her she's being ridiculous; that the fighting won't stop just because a seven-year-old girl asks nicely. Cathy tells her to shut up. It's nice having Cathy on her side again. The older girls are no longer friends. Ada seems to be mostly alone nowadays, and Becky is almost smug but makes herself feel sorry for her tormentor just in case her wish won't be granted because of it.

Her mother is learning to cope on her own, at long last. The three of them are almost whole inside. Almost. There is still an absence, and they still feel it. It is easier, though. Becky's optimism has rubbed off on the people around her. By now she doesn't have to pretend because it is second nature. No, first nature. That is who she is now.

The pin lands in Australia. It sounds like an interesting place to visit.

* * *

_February 1951_

Ada finds out about Becky's travel game and says she's an idiot, that she'll never see any of these places and so speculation is pointless. In retaliation, Becky spits in the other girl's drink when she isn't looking and tries not to laugh as she drinks it. She doesn't really need Cathy and Hazel to back her up now; she can look out for herself. She likes it when they help her with revenge plans, though. Way off in Korea-country, her father and Hawkeye are doing a similar sort of thing. She feels like she's a part of something.

The pin lands in Cyprus. The name makes Becky think of fruit. The weather sounds better than in New England, and there's no Ada. If only there was no Ada in Massachusetts. If only there was no Ada anywhere. Life would be better then.

* * *

_March 1951_

Becky finds out that her father's commanding officer has died, and she cries despite having never met him because he almost made it home. She realizes that the same thing could happen to her father, and the thought frightens her. She starts sleeping in Cathy's room again, but only for a few days. She won't be broken. Not now. It's been almost a year since her father left. They've come this far. Becky feels like she's felt far more than her fair share of pain in her short life, but maybe that means that somewhere else, maybe in one of her future travel destinations, another child has a happier life because Becky has their problems.

The pin lands in the Soviet Union. She is told that she shouldn't want to visit any of these countries, but that just makes her even more determined. She writes it in her notebook. Hazel informs her friend that she won't be going on that particular leg of Becky's journey.

* * *

_April 1951_

Becky has taken to staring out of the window again. Cathy once again tries to tell her she's facing west, towards the rest of America, rather than east, towards Asia and Korea-country, but the younger girl tells her that you eventually end up going east if you travel far enough west before returning to the outside world. She wants this stupid, pointless war to end. She can't imagine why she was so excited before. All it has brought her is pain and the death of the part of her that was innocent.

And yet, with that pain has come a sense of...being. She is much more curious and optimistic than she was. She will never regain her innocence, she can only grow more jaded, but that will keep her cautious. She doesn't think about this, though. In time, however, she will realise. These are qualities she will need seven years from now.

The pin lands in Massachusetts, which she takes as a good omen. Maybe the war will end soon and life can go back to normal. She tells her mother and Cathy this, and she can tell they don't quite believe her. She includes this information in a letter to her father. She hopes she is right with all her heart.

* * *

_May 1951_

Her father has been discharged. The four of them are reunited at long last. Sort of.

None of them are the same people they were last year; they can never fit back together in the same way again. But they don't know this.

They don't know that within the next month their family will be plunged into another conflict - a civil war of sorts. They don't know that this reunion is only temporary. After all, the girls and their mother don't know about Hawkeye. And the little blonde girl doesn't know just how much her life is going to change. She doesn't know that Becky McIntyre is going to give way to Beck Pierce-McIntyre in a few years. She is one year, five months and twenty-nine days from formulating the Theory. She has no idea of what the future holds.

None of this matters at the moment. How can it? It hasn't happened yet.

The pin lands in Canada. Becky writes it on her list. One day, far into the future, she will visit. But not yet. For now, at least, she is content to be right where she is. It's been a long time since she's felt that way. She is almost whole.

Almost.


End file.
